Clare Foges comment piece (30 July 2018) on the illegal cocaine trade is an excellent presentation on the associated horrors, but wildly off the mark if it is even attempting to offer a solution. Choosing to try and shame drug users is just a subset of legislators not confronting the practical consequences of current policy. Preaching “just say no” hasn’t worked for millennia and there is no reason why it should work now. Indeed the only effect of Clare Foges rebuke to her fellow professional class cocaine users is to make Clare Foges feel better.

This virtue signalling by the commentariat will not provide a solution to the horrors she correctly describes. She says “ethics must apply to the world as it is, not the world as we wish it to be.” It is policy makers and legislators ethical responsibility to address the harms their policy is causing. Virtue signalling isn’t good enough.